Gandhi read a poem describing the farmer as the
father of the world. It said God was the provider and cultivator was his hand.
He asserted that in peasants' freedom from poverty and ignorance lay the freedom
of India: " Over 75% of the population are agriculturists. The Kisan is the salt
of the earth which should belong to him and not to the absentee landlord sabhi
bhumi gopalki. There cannot be much self-government about us, if we take away
from the peasants almost the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation
can only come through the farmer. Neither the lawyers nor the doctors, nor the
rich landlords are going to secure it."
Twenty-five percent of the state revenue was
collected from the peasantry. The pressure of land tax was heavy. Whenever
Gandhi heard of or saw a new palatial building being constructed in any city in
India, he sadly remarked : " Oh it is the money that comes from agriculturists."
Any such symbol of urban prosperity reminded him of the peasantry burdened with
taxation, illegal exactions, debts which could never be fully paid, illiteracy,
superstition and diseases.
Gandhi was not a born Kisan but he made every
effort to become one. From boyhood he loved to grow fruits. Every
afternoon, coming back from school, he carried buckets of water up on the
terrace to water plants. At the age of 36, he began to live a peasant's life on
a farm. An acre of ground with some fruit trees attracted him when he was
searching a plot of land with his family and friends. slowly he took to farming
and gave up the gentlemanly occupation of an attorney. the cottages were built
by the inmates of the farm. Gandhi tilled the soil, drew water, grew vegetables
and fruits and hewed wood. He soon converted the land into an orchard.
Ten years of farm life in south Africa armed him
with good knowledge of and experience in farming. He popularised the non-violent
and more scientific method of bee -keeping that did not displace the honey comb,
nor destroyed the bees. He explained how bee-keeping near a harvesting land or a
garden of fruits and vegetables increased the yield from plants. The bees while
drinking honey from the flowers carry pollens with their feet and improve the
quality and quantity of crops.
Gandhi brushed aside any complaint about the
barrenness of land, dearth of implements or meagre water supply. The major asset
of a cultivator, he affirmed, was an intelligent use of his labour. He should be
energetic, resourceful and self-reliant. When an organiser of the Nayee Talim
complained that the land at their disposal was not fit for agriculture, Gandhi
said: " You do not know what kind of land we had to begin with in South Africa.
If I were in your place, I would not use the plough to begin with. I would arm
the children with hoe and teach them to use it. It is an art. the bullock power
can come later. A thin top layer of loam or compost manure can enable us to grow
many a useful vegetable and pot-herb. Conversion of night-soil into manure by
shallow trenching system does not need more than a fortnight . Our children
should be taught to regard the work of agriculture as honorable. It is not
degrading but a noble occupation." Gandhi thought agriculture could play an
important part in basic education scheme.
Just before the partition of India, the Hindus of
Noakhali asked him:" How can we continue to stay here, what are we to feed on?
the Muslim peasants are non-co-operating with us and are not supplying us with
bullocks or ploughs." Gandhi retorted: " Get hold of some pickaxes and start
digging. Crop yield won't be poor from earth dug with pickaxes."
In 1943, when Gandhi was in jail, lakhs of people
died of starvation in Bengal. The memory of that tragic event was fresh in the
minds of the people and the government officials. When there was fear of another
famine in 1947, the Viceroy promptly sent his private secretary to Sevagram in a
plane to seek Gandhi's advice. Gandhi remained unshaken and asked people to shed
all fear of the approaching calamity; " There is plenty of fertile land, enough
water and no dearth of man-power. Why should there be food shortage under such
circumstances? People should be educated to become self-reliant. He who eats two
grains must produce four. Everyone should grow some edible for personal use. The
easiest way to do so is to collect clean earth, mix it with organic manure even
a little bit of dried cow-dung is good organic manure and put it in any earthen
pot or tin pot and throw some seeds of vegetables and daily water the pots. All
exports of seeds should stopped. Starch can be derived from such roots as
carrots, parsnips, potatoes, yam and bananas. The idea being to exclude from the
present diet grains and pulses which can be kept and stored." His call for
self-help needed determined practice of discipline and austerity, adaptability
to anew type of food habit and no begging from abroad.
During the control of food and cloth, Gandhi
needed no rations from the Government stock. He could manage without rice, bread
and pulses and did not use sugar. He made his own cloth.
In Harijan, he gave detailed instructions as how
to make compost manure using the things that were near at hand, the things that
cost nothing -cow dung, night soil, urine, peelings of vegetables and deadly
water hyacinths. With labour and application, compost manure could be made
without any capital . In his ashrams, night-soil and urine were conserved in
pits. In a short time, they were turned in to rich manure. This bhangi cum
kisan's work did not appeal to the conservative peasants. Gandhi preferred
organic manure to chemical fertiliser. Use of the latter for soil fertility or
for quick return of crop was in his opinion dangerous. It might results in
depletion of the soil in spite of its promise of dramatic results.
He also did not favour the use of a tractor in
place of cattle plough. At the Sabarmati Ashram he tried almost all improved
ploughs but the primitive cattle plough proved must suitable. It conserved soil
because it ploughed deep enough for the crop but never too deep to do any
damage. Moreover, he disliked the displacement of human labour of hundreds of
men by a tractor. He wanted to employ them in fruitful productive work. He had a
fear that a mechanical device would blunt the creative faculty of the peasants.
The age long system of ploughing small holdings separately was not approved by
him because " it is better for 100 families to cultivate together and divide the
income there from than to divide the land any how into 100 portions. Everyone in
a village having a bullock and a bullock-cart seems wasteful'. He advocated
co-operative cattle farming. Collective cattle farming can ensure proper
veterinary treatment to animals and maintain a common grazing ground and a
select stud bull for many cows. No ordinary farmer can provide for these
arrangements. Cattle Fodder often costs more than what the cattle yield. As the
number of cattle increases , under pressure or turns them out to starve to
death. He ill treats the cattle and cruelly extracts work from them.
Gandhi laid special stress on protection of the
cow the most valuable animal in farm economy. During his tours all over India,
he was distressed to see lusterless eyes of the peasants and the pitiable
condition of the cows; " In no country on earth were the cow and its progeny so
ill-treated as in India where the cow is held in veneration. The veneration now
consists of deadly feuds with the Muslims over cow-killing and in sanctifying
ourselves with her sacred touch. Many pinjrapoles and goshalas are dens of
torture." He expected the pinjarapoles to take care of dry and disabled animals
and to give expert advice on cattle breeding. He preferred cow's milk and butter
to those of a buffalo for their superior quality. Moreover after death, the
skin, bone, entrails and flashings of the cow are useful.
In his ashram goshala he kept good stud bulls and
maintained a model yet inexpensive cow-shed. He attended to every detail of the
goshala. All new born calved were greeted with a loving pat by him. A heifer was
once suffering from an incurable disease. No medicals relief was of any avail.
Gandhi decide to end its life and himself held a paw of the ailing calf when the
doctor put it to sleep. There was aloud protest against this act of violence
committed by the great apostle of non-violence. One Jain threatened to wipe out
this sin with Gandhi's blood. Gandhi faced the storm calmly.
Once more he shocked the rigid observers of ahimsa
with his proposal of killing the monkeys that destroyed crops, fruits and
vegetable grown in the ashram, He said: " having become a peasant myself, I must
find out some means by which crops can be safeguarded against them with the
minimum use of himsa. The monkey nuisance has become very acute. The monkeys
refuse to be frightened even by gun-shots and only gibber and howl when shots
are fired. I am seriously considering the question of killing them, in case it
should become unavoidable. " No monkey was ever killed or hurt by arrows or
otherwise in the ashram.
How to increase the income of the poor peasants
was Gandhi's constant concern. They were without work for four to six months a
year. They could not maintain themselves only on agriculture. He tried to
utilize this enforced idleness of 30 crores of peasants by restoring to women
their spinning wheel and to men their handlooms . He wanted to raise the income
of these illiterate, ill-clad, ill-fed peasants to a level that would ensure a
balanced diet, livable dwelling houses cloth enough for health requirements and
good education. they should also develop a will to resist He stood for
Kisan-Mazdoor-Praja-Raj and warned: " When the peasant is fully awakened to a
sense of his plight and knows that is fully awakened to a sense of his plight
and knows that is to not his kismet that has brought hi m to this helpless
state, he will abolish all distinctions between constitutional and
unconstitutional means . When the Indian peasantry will under stand what swaraj
is, then nobody dare hold it back from him."
Under Gandhi's lead, the peasants joined the civil
disobedience movement, made salt despite the official prohibition and took the
Independence Pledge in public meetings. During the no-tax campaign, their land
and property were confiscated. they lost economically but grew in moral stature.